For purposes of the argument, the relevant point is that some of the claims are system claims, and some are method claims. LG licensed Intel to produce and sell the claimed systems and practice the claimed methods, but Intel generally only sells its processors and chipsets. Intel has a license to make such sales, but only to the extent they are combined with other Intel products to produce the complete system which practices the claimed methods. The defendants purchased Intel processors and chipsets and combined them with non-Intel products to produce the claimed systems. It isn't reasonably disputed by the parties that at least the primary use of the Intel products purchased by the petitioners is to form part of the claimed systems that practice the claimed methods.

Quanta and LG frame the argument in fundamentally different ways. According to Quanta, the issue is that it is undisputed that the sale from Intel to the petitioners was an authorized sale. As noted above, Intel's purchasers are licensed under the patents as long as they combine the purchased Intel chipsets and processors only with other Intel products. However, the petitioners did not do so—instead, they combined the Intel products with other components from less expensive sources. As such, the petitioners could not seek refuge in Intel's license.

Nevertheless, they argued that the patent exhaustion doctrine should apply (and they should therefore not be liable for infringement) becuase of two main facts: (1) the only reasonable use of these chipsets is in the claimed systems and to practice the claimed methods, and (2) the sales by Intel were authorized sales, meaning Intel would not be liable for contributory infringement based on the sales. According to petitioners, because the only reasonable use of the chipsets is to practice the patents, it acts as an authorized sale of a patented item, and therefore exhausts the patent owner's rights upon the sale. This position is illustrated in the transcript on pages 14-15:

MS. MAHONEY: Well, I think that it just means that once you have that transaction any sales that occur for those articles under that license are going to be exhausted by definition. But, you know, we have certainly focused on the sale of the articles to Quanta from Intel, and I think, you know, it makes sense to look at it that way.And, as indicated, there really is -- there have been arguments that somehow this deprives the patentowner of the right to collect its full royalty, but that doesn't make any sense. Because if you -- if you look at the rights that are afforded under contributory infringement, what Congress has done in Section 271(c) and what this Court had done before was to say that if you are the owner of a system patent or a method patent, you can go ahead and collect your royalty when someone sells a product that will contributorily infringe.In other words, your -- your product is sufficiently -- your patent is sufficiently embodied in those contributorily infringing products that it's appropriate for you to collect your royalty there. That's exactly what happened in this case. LGE did get its royalty from Intel, did give them authority to sell products which would otherwise contributorily infringe, and now what it's seeking to do is to say, despite the authorized sale, despite the fact it would contributorily infringe, we want to collect another royalty from the buyer of the product that can't use it for any other purpose. Why? Well, because we have -we had them sent a notice that said we wanted to do that.Under this Court's cases, that is completely impermissible. In two cases in particular, Motion Picture Patents, they tried to do the exact same thing. And in the Millinger case the patent owner said that it had never gotten paid for the extension rights under its patent. And this Court said: Nope; once you've sold the article, that's the royalty you get.

As some of the Justices pointed out, however, this seems to leave a loophole in the exhaustion doctrine. If the license agreement is crafted correctly, exhaustion may be avoidable. For example, if the license is worded such that (in this case) Intel could only sell its components to other companies that were also licensed under the patents, the sales from Intel to the petitioners become unauthorized, and therefore no exhaustion has occurred. Thomas Hungar, arguing on behalf of the United States supporting petitioners, also agreed with this point, as illustrated on page 20 of the transcript:

MR. HUNGAR: Well, only at the -- only at the level of the licensee. That is, if it is true, as Ms. Mahoney said, if the -- if LG here had given a restricted license that restricted the right to sell, that said you can only sell in these instances, and if Intel then sold outside those permitted instances, that would be patent infringement.CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: And it would be patent infringement by the use of the product by the people that Intel sold to?MR. HUNGAR: Yes, because it was an unauthorized sale.CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: That would sound like your friend on the other side, the Respondent, had actually won in this case.MR. HUNGAR: Well, that's right. If this had been an authorized sale -- I mean an unauthorized sale, they would win. But, of course, it's been accepted throughout the case, and the court of appeals explicitly said at page 5A, and it's been undisputed, that Intel had the right to sell these items to these Petitioners.

The respondent, on the other hand, framed the issue as one of implied license. According to the respondent, there can be no exhaustion, because the product sold was not the subject of the patents: at best, it was a portion of the patented systems, and capable (with other components) of performing the clai

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